Sketching Class: Emancipation Park

Kids & Architecture Sketching Class:
Emancipation Park

The Architecture Center Houston’s (ArCH) Kids + Architecture committee invites you to join us for a sketching class at Emancipation Park.

Emancipation Park, the oldest park in the city of Houston, is in the heart of the Third Ward. Purchased in 1872 to serve as a picnic ground and community gathering-space for Houston’s Black and African American community to celebrate Juneteenth and the end of slavery, the park continues to be an important historic landmark and a vital, contemporary community space at the center of Houston’s Black community.

The grounds were initially purchased with $1,000 dollars in donations raised from the community of formerly-enslaved people. In 1918, the city of Houston acquired the park, and established it as the only municipal park available for use by the city’s Black population. A community center was built in 1939 with funding from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and in 2017 a comprehensive master plan reimagined the park’s recreation center, pool building, and grounds, revitalizing the park and the neighborhood that surrounds it.

Before we start sketching, the class will begin with a tour of the park, led by the Emancipation Park Conservancy, which illuminates the park’s history and design.

This program is gensously sponsored by Smith + Company Architects.